The present invention relates to an air conditioner having a cleaning function to automatically cleaning smeared filters, and more particularly to an air conditioner permitting removal of dust sticking to filters without fail and easy collection of the removed dust.
The interior unit of a currently available air conditioner has dust arresting filters to prevent dust from entering through the air intake port. Usually, these filters are detachable, and the user would take them off from time to time, clean them and return to the interior unit.
Since an air conditioner is usually installed in a high position in a room, it is extremely difficult for an aged person or a woman to take off and return the filters. This leads to a problem that the user is apt to neglect cleaning of the filters at an adequate frequency.
If dust is allowed to remain accumulating on filters, not only will the air flow rate drop to reduce the efficiency of heat exchange, but also the dust will gather mold, which would generate a foul smell or house dust, to which many persons are allergic.
As a proposed solution to this problem, the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-99479 discloses roll-shaped circulating filters and a dust removing device arranged on the path of circulation so that the latter can remove dust having stuck to the former. This, however, involves the following problems.
First, according to this example of the prior art, the filters cannot be removed, and therefore they cannot be washed or otherwise cleaned completely. Even if the filters are detachable, they may be hurt when they are reinstalled.
Second, since the top face of the dust removing device is open all the time, when the dust collector box becomes filled with dust, the dust in the box may be scraped out when the filters are rolled up.
Above all in the ceiling-wall type interior unit of the air conditioner, which has become available recently, intended for installation at the corner between a wall and the ceiling, dust will more easily accumulate on filters because the air intake port is open towards the ceiling, and accordingly the filters should be cleaned more frequently.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide an air conditioner having a cleaning function to permit removal of dust sticking to filters without fail and easy collection of the removed dust.
In order to achieve the object stated above, an air conditioner, according to the invention, whose cabinet having an air intake port and an air outlet port accommodates a heat exchanger and an air blower and in which a dust filter or filters are arranged in position between the air intake port and the heat exchanger, is provided within the cabinet with sliding means for reciprocating the filters and cleaners, arranged to come in contact with the filters along the shifting paths of the filters.
This arrangement of the cleaners to have the filters intervening between them enables not only both faces of the filters to be cleaned without fail but also to securely store and collect the removed dust.
While the filter sliding means may reciprocate the filters within the cabinet, it is more preferable to reciprocate the filters into and out of the cabinet. As this arrangement enables the filters to be discharged outside, the exposed filters can be taken out and wiped.
To facilitate collection of the dust that has been arrested, it is preferable for the cleaners to be detachably provided in the cabinet.
In a preferred mode for carrying out the invention, the cleaners have a bottom cover having a first brush or brushes for cleaning one side each of the filters and a top cover openably fitted to the bottom cover and having a second brush or brushes for cleaning the other side each of the filters.
This enables the dust having accumulated inside to be easily collected by opening and closing the cleaners, and both faces of the filters to be cleaned by passing them between opposing brushes.
In a more specific configuration, it is preferable for at least one of the brushes to have an upright brush, which comes into contact with the filters at a right angle, and an inclined brush, which comes into contact with the filters obliquely at a prescribed angle. This arrangement serves to further enhance the effect of scraping the dust as the bristles of the inclined brush to be inserted along the meshes of the filters.
It is preferable for inlet slits to be provided to let the filters into the cleaners between the two ends each of the bottom cover and the top cover, and for the inlet slits to have openings on the shifting paths of the filters.
It is further preferable for at least one of the inlet slits to have a shutter to open the inlet slits when the filters are shifting in the forward direction, press the inlet slits in the closing direction when the filters are shifting in the backward direction, and thereby to prevent the dust having accumulated in the cleaners from being discharged out of the cleaners.
This arrangement prevents without fail the dust once scraped off the filters from being brought out of the cleaners again.
In a more specific mode of implementation, the shutter has a pair of shafts arranged in parallel to each other, a pair of scrapers opening and closing round the shafts in directions moving away and towards each other, and opening/closing levers fitted to the shafts to open or close the scrapers via prescribed scraper opening/closing means.
To provide against rare cases of dust sticking again to the filters, it is preferable for each opposing face of the scrapers to have a wiper which, when the scrapers are closed, come into contact with the filters to wipe off the dust stuck to the filters.
Rails along which the opening/closing levers shift and guiders, formed at both ends of the rails, for guiding the opening/closing levers towards either opening rails or closing rails of the rails are provided at parallel edges of the filters along the sliding direction, and this arrangement makes possible synchronous operation of the sliding of the filters and the scrapers.
It is preferable for each of the filters to have a mesh section in a grid form and a frame surrounding the mesh, both being molded integrally, and the height of meshes parallel to the sliding direction (warps) to be set higher than the height of meshes orthogonally crossing the sliding direction (wefts). This arrangement makes it easier for the brush bristles to enter into the meshes and to scrape dust because the meshes manifest themselves in a parallel stripe form in the filter surfaces along the sliding direction.